By Amy Mackinnon
Patriot Ledger
May 3, 2011
http://www.patriotledger.com/features/x294378623/Author-Jennifer-Haighs-new-novel-is-a-story-about-clergy-sexual-abuse
 |
| Jennifer Haigh, a best-selling and award-winning author, lives on the South Shore and has a new novel coming out in May. Her book, "Faith," is set in a fictitious South Shore town. |
Most mornings, Jennifer Haigh leaves her South Shore home before first light and heads to a destination unknown to anyone. She doesn’t bring a cell phone and there’s no Internet access. She carries only paper and pens – and her thoughts.
“I have a writing studio,” said Haigh over tea at Cohasset’s French Memories. “It’s in an undisclosed location. If I were to die there, no one would know.”
Not true.
Haigh, considered by many to be one of the premier writers of our time, is set to release her fourth novel, “Faith,” on Tuesday, May 10. “Faith” tells the story of Sheila McGann, who returns to the South Shore after her brother, a priest, is accused of molesting a boy. It tests the faith the McGann family has in one another.
It’s already received starred reviews from industry trade magazines such as Publishers Weekly and the always discerning Kirkus Reviews.
There’s buzz among foreign publishers, and sales. Most telling, perhaps, is that in the advanced reader galley the publisher sends to reviewers, every department head, including Harper Collins group president Michael Morrison, endorsed the book with a personal blurb.
It wasn’t hard to get, according to Claire Wachtel, an executive editor at Harper Collins and Haigh’s editor on all four books.
“She’s a dream,” said Wachtel. “She writes beautifully, she’s very easy to work with and listens carefully. She’s so precise, so focused. The outpouring of support for it is organic here. I could stand on my head for other books and not get that kind of attention.”
Harper Collins publisher Jonathan Burnham agreed.
“‘Faith’ will speak to a wide audience,” said Burnham. “She handles these complex issues with grace and insight. For me, it’s her best book to date.”
Haigh’s first novel, “Mrs. Kimble,” was awarded the prestigious PEN Hemingway award for debut fiction while her follow-up, “Baker Towers,” received the PEN LL Winship two years later. It was also a New York Times bestseller, as was her third, “The Condition.” It appears “Faith” is headed down the same path to success.
“Jennifer is incapable of choosing the wrong word or crafting anything other than a beautiful story,” said PEN New England executive director Karen Wulf. “She is the only writer to win both the Hemingway and Winship awards.”
Wulf said Haigh, who recently joined PEN’s board of directors and oversees their Prison Creative Writing Program, isn’t one to seek the limelight or shine said light on her impressive achievements.
Said Wulf, “I believe she can rest very comfortably having her work speak for her.”
It will have to because Haigh prefers not to discuss her private life. To her, fame is “reductive.” She’s not one to take to Facebook or Twitter, to Tumblr or any other kind of social media to wax on about how many words she’s logged in a day or her position on the political shenanigans of the hour.
And while she doesn’t go to the extremes of J.D. Salinger, Haigh, like her work, presents herself with modest elegance, emphasis on the modest.“I sort of blundered around for a bit as I always do,” said Haigh, slim and stylish, her long auburn hair neatly tucked behind an ear as she explains how it took her six months to find the right point-of-view for “Faith.”
If anyone were qualified to write a novel about the clergy sex abuse scandal, it would be Haigh. She attended Catholic schools for 12 years, arriving in Boston in 2002 just as news of the scandal broke.
“Like a lot of people, I was horror struck,” said Haigh. “My nuns and priests are the heroes of my childhood. I know a lot of great ones.”
She took that compassion for a world she loved and created one of her own, filled with the kind of complicated characters and choices that she hopes will once again resonate with readers.
Said Haigh, “Writing a novel is an act of faith. You have to believe what’s in your head and not look down.”
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.